Hannibal: Man

Hannibal was military commander of Carthage during the Second Punic War. Explore interesting quotes on man.
Hannibal: 12   quotes 30   likes

“Ah there is one thing about them more wonderful than their numbers … in all that vast number there is not one man called Gisgo.”

Spoken as a jest to one of his officers named Gisgo, who had remarked on the numbers of Roman forces against them before the Battle of Cannae (2 August 216 BC), as quoted in A History of Rome (1855), by Henry George Liddell Vol. 1, p. 355
Variant translation: You forget one thing Gisgo, among all their numerous forces, there is not one man called Gisgo.

“Let us ease the Roman people of their continual care, who think it long to await the death of an old man.”
Liberemus diuturna cura populum Romanum, quando mortem senis exspectare longum censent. (Latin, not original language)

Last words according to Livy "ab urbe condita", Book XXXIX, 51.

“God has given to man no sharper spur to victory than contempt of death.”
nullum contemptu m[ortis incitamentum] ad uincendum homini ab dis immortalibus acrius datum est.

As quoted by Livy, :la:s:Ab Urbe Condita/liber XXI 44, as translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt, in The War with Hannibal (1965).